The Proverbial Closet
by xIrelandx
Summary: Merlin attempts to come out. So does Arthur.


"I'm a sorcerer" I blurt out.

Arthur looks up from his paper work, slightly dazed, his mouth ajar. "Huh?"

O, fuck. Saying it once, ripping it off like some sort of adhesive on your fingers – that's one thing. Superbly easy, that is. Nothing to worry about after that, the anxiety is gone because you can't take back the words. Repeating it slowly so that the person on the other end receives your message…not so much.

"I…am…a…sorcerer."

Arthur blinked. "Oh." He went back to his paperwork, rubbing his lips with his pointer finger and thumb. He leaned over to the side, still contemplating the paper. He sighed, setting the paper down on the desk and standing up. "Nope, still ass-numbingly dull. Care to go for a ride somewhere?" He asked with a smirk, handing me my jacket.

I couldn't really move, stuck the floor like dried, caked-on mud. It was quite the out-of-body experience. "Arthur!" I shouted.

He turned around, still looking smugly at me. "What?"

"Did you not just hear what I said?"

"Yes. You're a sorcerer. Now please, accompany me, if you would." There were many things in my life that I couldn't comprehend despite my magical abilities. One of them was why Arthur even bothered getting married when Gwen chose to stick to the Lady Morgana's chambers and he often made lewd suggestions toward me that I'm still not entirely sure how to interpret. Another was how a dragon was capable of talking when he didn't even have lips. Or how Gwaine hadn't quite gotten sick of apples yet – the love affair really was quite disturbing at times, I could swear I heard him singing to a whole basket full of them once. The last thing that bothered me to Hell and back was how nonchalantly Arthur was taking all of this.

I must have blacked out for a moment or two, long enough for Arthur to walk up to me and start rubbing my shoulder and asking me, "Merlin, are you okay?" I still didn't respond until his hand made it to my side and started rubbing more vigorously. "Merlin…Earth to Merlin…" the words came out cattishly.

I shook my head. "Wait, you don't seem to understand this –"

Arthur rolled his eyes at me, dropping his hand. "Yes, Merlin, I get it. You can do magick. Make stuff levitate, communicate with people telepathically, cure illnesses – I get the picture, now please –" He grabbed me by the neckerchief, trying to drag me out the door. "- Can we leave now? This place is rather boring when nothing dangerous is going on."

I slipped out of his grasp and, without thinking about what I was doing, the whole place practically exploded. The cupboards opened themselves and threw their contents out. Dishes shattered to the floor – on the other side of the room from where they'd been laying. And Arthur was now levitating, close to the ceiling and…naked?

"All very impressive, Merlin, but would you mind letting me down now? The clothing I don't so much mind so long as the door is locked, but I would like to be on the ground." He paused, before adding, "Unless you're going to be joining me up here?"

I blinked and Arthur dropped to the floor. I had the most ridiculous thought to put everything back in its proper place, but there were more important matters at hand. "You're not surprised."

"Of course I'm not, why would I be?"

"Because I've been keeping this from you! I was expecting you'd at least be angry at me!" Arthur's eyes became glazed over for a minute, a rather dirty smile on his face. I neither knew what he might be thinking, nor did I really care at this moment. "Arthur! Say something to me!"

"Do you ever do magick on accident when you're having sex?"

I spluttered, I'll admit, because that is most certainly not the first question I would ask if I found myself confronted such a situation. "I, you know, I wouldn't know, but – that is not the kind of question you are supposed to be asking!"

Arthur looked puzzled. "Well, what sort of question should I be asking? Because that seems a rather legitimate question to me." I stared at him in disbelief. "What? It could cause quite a lot of problems!"

"You are just unbelievable! I confront you with the biggest secret of my life –" Arthur sniggers, his eyes looking elsewhere – "Oh shut up, Arthur! This is serious! Do you have any idea how much this hurts? For ten years now I haven't been able to think of anything else but how to tell you about this, and worrying about how you'll react, and dreading what would happen if God forbid somebody else found out first, and distracted by –"

Arthur had the strangest look on his face, someplace between sadness and full attention. "I am listening, Merlin. And I do take you seriously, but…this isn't news for me. I'm not surprised, I've known for a long time."

"What? When?"

"When tried to put yourself in Gwen's place all those years ago. Mind you, you're not exactly the best at hiding it. I'm surprised my father, of all people, didn't figure it out first."

"But…but you thought I was in love with Gwen…" Arthur sneered at me, the way he so often did when turned off by something I've said. Just like he did that day, when I told Uther that the recovery of Gwen's father was all my doing…

"I never thought anything of the sort. It was merely the first thing that popped into my head – and quite lucky for you it was, my father would've killed you."

"But…" I shuffled my feet. "But – but Morgana certainly thought I was –"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Morgana had feelings for Gwen herself, and for you, and for me –" Arthur paused to think for a moment. "We're all a little gay for each other here, aren't we? We're like one big, happy orgy. But no, I never thought that you were in love with Gwen, there was no way you could be – although clearly, she had feelings for you –"

"How do you mean 'there's no way' I could be? I could've done!"

"Oh please, Merlin." Arthur walked closer to me, backing me up against the footboard of his bed. "You wear that stupid neckerchief all the time, are silly as all get out, have a thing for small and fluffy animals, are extremely loving and tender and chivalric, and you've followed me around like a lost puppy from the first time we met. Of course you're not in love with Gwen, nor with any woman for that matter."

"I liked Morgana once," I say weakly. My case isn't really going anywhere, but I feel like a fog is lifting. I've spent so many years trying to hide my secret, trying to expose it bit by bit, trying to make Camelot okay for me to be who I am. And now, to know I wasted so many years on one excruciatingly tedious task…God, I feel old.

Arthur's face turned back to a smirk. "It's hard not to. For one, she's a Seer, and has the magick like you. For another…well, she's Morgana. She has that effect on everyone, including Gwen." He gestured to the bed, which hadn't needed to be remade in several, several months. Or was it years now? "Clearly."

I sat down on the foot of the bed, staring around me. Had the colors always been this vibrant? Had it always been this chilly, and have these sheets always been this soft? I'd never noticed any of these things before.

Arthur, whose most recent posture was standing vaguely above me, leaning on a bedpost, now moved down to sitting next to me. "Honestly," he continue. "I was wondering when you were going to tell me about it. I was sad that you couldn't trust me, and from time to time I completely forgot that you could even do magick. But I knew – especially after my father died, and I picked up his hatred – why you could never tell me. But even if you had, I'd never let anything happen to you."

"You knew…you knew this whole time…" I looked at him. I wanted to cry, I wanted to leave, I wanted both to hug him and kiss him and, for some odd reason, hide in a well-confined and darkly lit space, like a closet or underneath his bed. "But…but if you knew, why didn't you just tell me you knew?"

Arthur shrugged. "It was your secret to tell, not mine. Friends don't out other friends – and that was another thing I'd always been wondering." He paused, but didn't continue. I nudged his shoulder with mine, asking him to finish. "When are you ever going to come out of the proverbial closet?"

I blinked. Now it was my turn to ask, stupidly, "Huh?"

Arthur ran his hands through his hair and stood up, facing me. "I've known this too, forever, and I have been trying desperately for you to say something about it, but you've always been so distant. How long are you going to try to keep that secret? How many times do I have to make myself obvious to you before you pick up the hint?" Oh, sweet baby James, I really am a dolt.

And now, all of those pent-up emotions and thoughts and desires and whatever else had been suppressed under all of the depression and worry surfaced and, although Arthur's eyes were still covered by his hands in exasperation, I launched myself at him, tackling him to the ground. There were now two things that I no longer had to hide about myself. I no longer had to do anything the hard way. All the chores, the curing, the getting back at Gwaine for his prattish jokes – I could do all of these things now without fear of exposure or fear of death (not that Gwaine would ever kill me or could, but the idea seemed threatening at the time). And I also no longer had to control myself in, well, any aspect. And I made damn sure not to hold back kissing Arthur's neck, his shoulder, his ear, his cheek, and biting him in the most random of places. As his servant, Arthur often made me groan with the amount of work he'd given me to do. Tonight, I was going to return the favor.

And to answer his ridiculous, magick-based question – yes.


End file.
